Murphey Strikes Again!
This was one of those days where it seemed that Murphey was working overtime. Each of the problems by themselves would have been a minor annoyance, but all piled together was just nuts!!
It started off early in the morning, when we noticed that our cell phones had no service. The farm's Internet connection seemed to be fine though; and with our mornings as busy as they are, we didn't think much else of it. When I got into town though, I discovered that not only was my cell phone out of service, so was my land-line! At least, that's what it seemed like at first. I quickly found out that local calls worked just fine, but anything beyond was dead. Furthermore, any of the calling features also did not work; This was a problem because when I left the shop last night, I forwarded the phone to my cell phone, and now I could not shut off the call-forwarding. With no cellular service, I could make local calls, but no-one could call me. I also soon discovered that the Internet connection was down, so I could't get online to look up or order parts, nor could I process any credit or debit-card transactions. Normally, the debit-machine uses the phone-lines as a backup; but since the phones were down too, that wasn't possible. The farm's Internet was working because that uses a satellite connection instead of ADSL.
I was supposed to be sending out a U-Haul trailer in the afternoon, but with the phones and Internet down, there was no way to process the rental. Furthermore, the customer only had a cell phone, so there was no way to reach her to let her know this. In the meantime, I also had to get over to the Elks Hall to get the crock-pots going to cook tonight's supper. It turns out that the storeroom at the hall uses a different key than the three I already have, so I wasn't able to get in to get the crock-pots. I tried phoning Andy from the hall, but there was no answer at his shop, so I drove back over there. There was a sign in his window saying he was closed for the rest of the day, and when I tried calling his home number, I was told that he had to go to a funeral. Great - the only guy I know who has a key, and no way to reach him!
I found out that the cause of the outages was a garage fire in the town of Gull Lake, which sits right next to the Trans-Canada highway; SaskTel had a large fibre-optic cable running along the uttility poles in the area, and when the garage caught fire it wound up burning the cable as well. I was rather surprised to learn that a cable that critical would be in such a vulnerable place, but I guess that's just how it is. That cable supplies the feed for every cell-tower and municipality past Gull Lake, so pretty much the entire SW corner of the province was offline until it was repaired! There was rumour (and worry) that the repairs might take a couple of days (repairing a fibe-optic cable is not a quick-and-easy task.) Thankfully, that turned out not to be the case.
Around 4pm, my cell phone came back online with a bunch of chiming as missed-call and text alerts came through. Immediately afterwards, the Internet connection came back online as well. The problem was that by now I was really supposed to be at the Elk's Hall getting supper going. With the cell phones working again, I sent a text to Andy to let him know the key I had didn't work ( I didn't want to phone him at a funeral) and I got a reply a few minutes later saying he'd pop down right away to open the door. At the same time, my U-Haul customer called, wondering if she could come get the trailer now that the phones were working again. I told her I had to make a quick trip to the hall to get things started, then I'd be back, so about a half-hour. I rushed to the hall, threw the ingredients into the crock-pots and set them on High before heading back to the shop.
At the shop, I had to move the heavy 6x12 U-Haul trailer into position to make sure all the tires were properly inflated,etc before my customer hooked up to it. At the same time, a rather annoying repeat customer arrived, wondering if I could have a quick look at his trailer-wiring (just a quick test with the plug-in tester, thankfully.) He just bought a rather expensive Dixon push-mower from me last week, so I have to be nice, but the guy really is kinda nuts - or maybe he's the sane one and it's the rest of us who are nuts... At any rate, got him taken care of, and got the trailer all hooked up for my customer. I had to replace both of the safety-chains on the trailer; One was worn out, and some idiot had tied the other into a knot to shorten it! Who the )$(!@#$ ties a knot in a chain?! Thankfully, U-Haul designs these things so that replacing a chain only takes a couple minutes, but with everything already running late, every minute counted! It was 5:30pm by the time I got everything taken care of, which is the regular closing time for my shop, but an hour later than I normally close on "Elks Night."
I got back to the hall as quickly as I could, and started peeling potatoes for supper. We were doing a roast-beef supper, having been graciously given three gallon-pails of roast beef and another pail of gravy from the Royal Purple's banquet a couple weeks prior. That meant simply re-heating the meat and gravy, which I had set to thaw out the night before. It wasn't quite thawed out yet when I put it all in the crock-pots, so I was just hoping that it would be ready by the time supper was expected to be served. As it turned out, by the time I had the potatoes done, and the peas-and-carrots done, everything was piping hot. The only disappointment was the gravy - it didn't seem to like being frozen and re-heated. No matter what I tried, it simply would not smooth out like gravy should, and it remained with an odd, lumpy texture even though it was piping hot. I think there may have been too much fat or something in it, and it just never liquified properly. Other than that, the meal was a decent success.
Trixstir attempted to page and phone me during the meeting, but I had the ringer off until after the meeting; Apparently there was no-one at the farm when she got home, and she was wondering where everyone was. She had forgotten about the Elks meeting, and Snips was helping my U-Haul customer load the trailer. He should have been home hours earlier - the customer had hired him and his friend to help her load the trailer, and she said it would be a quick job as there were just a bunch of boxes. Well, apparently there were several boxes, and then a bunch of other furnishings like bed-frames and such that hadn't even been dismantled yet! The customer's useless nephew sat on the couch smoking and drinking while Snips and his friend did all the work, which took them until nearly 9pm! Snips had picked up his sisters from Daycare before 6pm, so they were also there. The customer brought everyone some donuts, so the girls weren't hungry - but they were on a sugar-rush!
I got home shortly before 11pm, and am just glad this crazy day is over!
It started off early in the morning, when we noticed that our cell phones had no service. The farm's Internet connection seemed to be fine though; and with our mornings as busy as they are, we didn't think much else of it. When I got into town though, I discovered that not only was my cell phone out of service, so was my land-line! At least, that's what it seemed like at first. I quickly found out that local calls worked just fine, but anything beyond was dead. Furthermore, any of the calling features also did not work; This was a problem because when I left the shop last night, I forwarded the phone to my cell phone, and now I could not shut off the call-forwarding. With no cellular service, I could make local calls, but no-one could call me. I also soon discovered that the Internet connection was down, so I could't get online to look up or order parts, nor could I process any credit or debit-card transactions. Normally, the debit-machine uses the phone-lines as a backup; but since the phones were down too, that wasn't possible. The farm's Internet was working because that uses a satellite connection instead of ADSL.
I was supposed to be sending out a U-Haul trailer in the afternoon, but with the phones and Internet down, there was no way to process the rental. Furthermore, the customer only had a cell phone, so there was no way to reach her to let her know this. In the meantime, I also had to get over to the Elks Hall to get the crock-pots going to cook tonight's supper. It turns out that the storeroom at the hall uses a different key than the three I already have, so I wasn't able to get in to get the crock-pots. I tried phoning Andy from the hall, but there was no answer at his shop, so I drove back over there. There was a sign in his window saying he was closed for the rest of the day, and when I tried calling his home number, I was told that he had to go to a funeral. Great - the only guy I know who has a key, and no way to reach him!
I found out that the cause of the outages was a garage fire in the town of Gull Lake, which sits right next to the Trans-Canada highway; SaskTel had a large fibre-optic cable running along the uttility poles in the area, and when the garage caught fire it wound up burning the cable as well. I was rather surprised to learn that a cable that critical would be in such a vulnerable place, but I guess that's just how it is. That cable supplies the feed for every cell-tower and municipality past Gull Lake, so pretty much the entire SW corner of the province was offline until it was repaired! There was rumour (and worry) that the repairs might take a couple of days (repairing a fibe-optic cable is not a quick-and-easy task.) Thankfully, that turned out not to be the case.
Around 4pm, my cell phone came back online with a bunch of chiming as missed-call and text alerts came through. Immediately afterwards, the Internet connection came back online as well. The problem was that by now I was really supposed to be at the Elk's Hall getting supper going. With the cell phones working again, I sent a text to Andy to let him know the key I had didn't work ( I didn't want to phone him at a funeral) and I got a reply a few minutes later saying he'd pop down right away to open the door. At the same time, my U-Haul customer called, wondering if she could come get the trailer now that the phones were working again. I told her I had to make a quick trip to the hall to get things started, then I'd be back, so about a half-hour. I rushed to the hall, threw the ingredients into the crock-pots and set them on High before heading back to the shop.
At the shop, I had to move the heavy 6x12 U-Haul trailer into position to make sure all the tires were properly inflated,etc before my customer hooked up to it. At the same time, a rather annoying repeat customer arrived, wondering if I could have a quick look at his trailer-wiring (just a quick test with the plug-in tester, thankfully.) He just bought a rather expensive Dixon push-mower from me last week, so I have to be nice, but the guy really is kinda nuts - or maybe he's the sane one and it's the rest of us who are nuts... At any rate, got him taken care of, and got the trailer all hooked up for my customer. I had to replace both of the safety-chains on the trailer; One was worn out, and some idiot had tied the other into a knot to shorten it! Who the )$(!@#$ ties a knot in a chain?! Thankfully, U-Haul designs these things so that replacing a chain only takes a couple minutes, but with everything already running late, every minute counted! It was 5:30pm by the time I got everything taken care of, which is the regular closing time for my shop, but an hour later than I normally close on "Elks Night."
I got back to the hall as quickly as I could, and started peeling potatoes for supper. We were doing a roast-beef supper, having been graciously given three gallon-pails of roast beef and another pail of gravy from the Royal Purple's banquet a couple weeks prior. That meant simply re-heating the meat and gravy, which I had set to thaw out the night before. It wasn't quite thawed out yet when I put it all in the crock-pots, so I was just hoping that it would be ready by the time supper was expected to be served. As it turned out, by the time I had the potatoes done, and the peas-and-carrots done, everything was piping hot. The only disappointment was the gravy - it didn't seem to like being frozen and re-heated. No matter what I tried, it simply would not smooth out like gravy should, and it remained with an odd, lumpy texture even though it was piping hot. I think there may have been too much fat or something in it, and it just never liquified properly. Other than that, the meal was a decent success.
Trixstir attempted to page and phone me during the meeting, but I had the ringer off until after the meeting; Apparently there was no-one at the farm when she got home, and she was wondering where everyone was. She had forgotten about the Elks meeting, and Snips was helping my U-Haul customer load the trailer. He should have been home hours earlier - the customer had hired him and his friend to help her load the trailer, and she said it would be a quick job as there were just a bunch of boxes. Well, apparently there were several boxes, and then a bunch of other furnishings like bed-frames and such that hadn't even been dismantled yet! The customer's useless nephew sat on the couch smoking and drinking while Snips and his friend did all the work, which took them until nearly 9pm! Snips had picked up his sisters from Daycare before 6pm, so they were also there. The customer brought everyone some donuts, so the girls weren't hungry - but they were on a sugar-rush!
I got home shortly before 11pm, and am just glad this crazy day is over!